Varlan

Name: Varlan Tesk
Alias: Vee
Age: 27
Race: Human, Cormyrian
Distinguishing marks: Torso and arms almost completley covered with intricate scarring and prison tattoos.

Varlan has taken great pains to forget his past. Cormyr may be a land of knights and chivalry, but it is also a land where the theft of a noblemans horse can spell a lifetime in a dark, dangerous prison for a twelve year old boy. Varlan grew into manhood surviving the murderers, cut throats and rapists that surrounded him. It taught him to keep his wits about him; to use the shadows to stay unnoticed. Most of all, it taught him to kill. Varlan took his first life when he was thirteen, an older convict who tried to force himself on the youth. After that first kill, taking lives began to come easier and easier. Not only that, but Varlan found that he had a suprising talent for the art of silent murder.

He spent six years in that dark, forboding place. After a few years the other convicts grew to fear him, and always gave him a wide berth. The new convicts began to call him 'The Shade', oweing to how they never saw him eat or sleep, and when he did enter a room he seemed to materialise from the shadows to do so.

In truth, Varlan just wanted to be left alone. He spent years learning every nook and cranny of the prison building itself and before long, had found an escape route through one of the latrines. Having escaped he quickly left Cormyr and began to travel, learning different trades as he did so and trying to put his past behind him. However some inexplainable force kept bringing him back to death, to killing. It wasnt long before he realised that people would pay a handsome fee to have a 'troublesome' person taken care of for good. However murder outside of the prison walls disturbed him. Before he had been killing to stay alive, killing people who deserved death. Out in the real world, he was being asked to kill people who had done nothing more than slight their rich and dangerous neighbour.

He travelled, learning the art of death from whoever he could; street thugs, poiseners, honey trappers, monks and very rarely, other assassins. It is these travels that have brought him to the Dales. To a land where war and strife offer him numerous chances to perfect his art.

Notes: Vee does not see himself as a wicked dealer of death, more a tool of Fate. He deals death to those he believes the Gods should have killed long ago and does so with in a clean, methodical and respectful manner. He never murders in anger, and does not always necessarily demand a price. If Vee believes a wrong-doer should be killed, he will make it his personal mission to seek them out and end their life.

On his bracer, Vee carries a tally. If you become a mark on his bracer, he will not stop until you are dead, and that mark is crossed out.

EDIT: Recently, Vee aquired the Skull of Angel Corr, a woman who was turned into a shade by a necromancer. Rather than giving this woman the final rest she pleaded for, Vee bended her will and made her his slave, thus finaly damning himself. Angel now acts as Vee's informer on the shadow plane.

The two assassins circled each other. Vee held his bejewelled rapier across his body defensively, his left arm dangling uselessly from the deep wound in his shoulder. His opponent gave a slight cackle of victory, spinning his kukris in a furious whirl.

Vee was backed against the wall, the fight not having gone entirely according to plan. He had known when he took a contract on a Zhentarim assassin's life it would not be easy, but he hadnt been banking on -this- assassin showing up in his place. Salazar Grimm was a name Vee knew well. The Scourge, The Dagger of the Dale, -The- Salazar Grimm. The most Vee could hope for now was a quick death.

Salazar came at him again. Vee parried the first of the kukri's, and cried out in pain as the second slashed across his thigh, bringing him to one knee. He gritted his teeth and stared up into the obsidian mask, fashioned into the face of a devil. Salazar stood over him, Vee's blood dripping from his wicked blades.

Salazar stayed silent for a moment before speaking. "Are you going to do anything, boy? Or just kneel there and bleed...?"

"Seems like the right thing to do." Vee murmered through a jaw clenched in pain. Salazar's kurki came darting in, sliding neatly into the wound on Vee's shoulder and pinning him to the alley wall.

"Shame, you have so much potential and you waste it by being freelance. Self taught, alone, weak. No-one will even remember you after a month." Salazar's words crept through the mouthpiece of his mask like a slither of pure shadow.

Vee couldnt help but smile. If he was going to be taken down himself, he almost didnt mind it being at the hand of someone he had modelled himself on. If anything, it felt almost right. Still...

Salazar recoiled and raised his off-hand kukri to deliver the final blow. As it came arching down, Vee's hand shot into action, throwing a thick black cloud of coughing powder into the dark obsidian face of the other assassin. It wasnt much, but it was enough to send Salazar into a hiss of coughing, his killer stroke turning enough for Vee to duck it and bring his foot up into Salazar's crown jewels.

As Salazar rolled on the floor, spluttering and cupping his crotch, Vee pulled the kukri from his ruined shoulder and tossed it aside. He stood shakily, but with a triumphant smirk on his lips. "I learned that in jail."

The Nameless Man held Vee by the throat. He tried to fight back, but his arms had become lead, his legs rock. He dangled helplessly, unable to stop the cleric draining the life from him.

Through the blood that was welling up in his throat, he managed an audible gargle, 'What do you want from me?!'

The Nameless Man's hollow eyes drilled into his own, his grip around Vee's throat tightening. 'I want what you want Varlan, to bring justice to those who have avoided it. To right the wrongs of men without being influenced by good or evil.'

With strength that could not possbily be contained in such a wirey frame, the Nameless Man flung Vee into and through the rickety wooden wall of the innroom. The strength slowly returning to his limbs through a haze of prickly pain, Vee scrambled to his knees; his hand going instinctively to his rapier. As he unsheathed it, the Nameless Man's foot slammed down on the thin sheet metal, snapping the blade as if it were made of dry kindling. Vee stared at the ruined weapon in disbelief, as his assailent brought a knee up into his jaw. His vision exploding in white hot pain, Vee fell onto his back. He knew he was finished and vowed silently to himself that he would meet death like a man. He looked up defiantly into those hollow black orbs as the Nameless Man stood over him.

The Nameless Man held his spear tip to Vee's throat, 'You want justice for what happened to you. You wish to watch the world burn for your own crimes. You turn your anger and guilt inward instead of using it as a weapon and that is why you will ultimately lose.' The spear pierced the skin, a small droplet of blood forming around the tip. 'You are not the only one who has been wronged Varlan, the world is full of those that deserve justice and We are the ones that give it to them.'

Varlan gritted his teeth, 'What would you have me do?'

The Nameless man turned the spear from Vee's throat and planted it into the wood next to his head with a dull thud. Reaching beneath his dark cloak, he drew two small and ancient shortswords. reversing them, he offered the grips to Varlan. 'I would have you do what you do best; and in doing so serve the Doombringer.'

Sensing some kind of trick, Vee refused at first, but the weapons seemed to call to him. A soft whisper, a promise of help; a promise of redemption. His hands reached out shakily to take the soft leather grips. As soon as his flesh met leather, a warm feeling rushed through Vee's body. In his minds eye he saw a vision; a black glove tossing a large silver coin into the air, a coin embossed with the symbol of a two faces back to back.

The Nameless Man inclined his head, 'There is no good and evil, Varlan. Only...'

Varlan nodded once, lookin at each blade in turn, 'Justice and Retribution.'

Justice is revenge for those who have suffered loses,
And for others it’s a punishment

It involves the truth, not the lies

If you want Justice you must be able to stand up for the truth.
If it does not come to you naturally, then I will.

You must be able to listen to the truth

What is justice really?
Is it truth, or revenge?

What is truth?
What is revenge?